


A chill

by themoonowl



Series: A Real Hero [16]
Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Alchera, Angst, Developing Friendships, Gen, Loneliness, Mass Effect 2, Post-Horizon (Mass Effect)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-30
Updated: 2020-10-30
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:15:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27152332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/themoonowl/pseuds/themoonowl
Relationships: Male Shepard & Garrus Vakarian, Male Shepard & Jacob Taylor, Male Shepard & Original Male Character(s), Male Shepard & Tali'Zorah nar Rayya
Series: A Real Hero [16]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1429021
Kudos: 3





	A chill

_ "NORMANDY," the sign says. Amber eyes and a warm smile directed at him, the smell of beer in the air, heat up his neck and—falling. Lungs tight, darkness— _

Samed gasped, looking up at the green-red lights in the sky.

One step, two, the everpresent snow crackled under his boots. Bodies buried under it. He walked on graves—walked on  _ his _ grave. This whole planet felt wrong. But he needed to do this.

Pieces of metal glinted in the faint light, all that remained from those who died. They were at peace now.

Then a red stripe stood against white snow, and a chill pierced Samed's chest, all the way to his heart.

No peace for him. Not yet. He was on a mission.

* * *

A glass of Thessian Temple in his hand, Samed leaned on the railing. Bekenstein's sunset painted everything in a pinkish hue, and combined with the jazzy music, it almost made everything seem...normal.

A normal party, not filled with mercs and criminals. Himself, just a well-dressed man, not a revenant among the living. The guy that kept glancing his way, with his fitted vest and dark wavy hair, he wasn’t a lowlife. A lowlife that Samed felt like pressing his lips against.

The chill began to creep up his spine again, and he swallowed his loneliness in one gulp, putting an empty wine glass down. He needed to find that vault.

* * *

“Hey, and Shepard?” Watery dark-brown eyes looked straight into his. The slimy,  _ wrong _ feeling from Aeia lingered on Samed’s skin even after a boiling-hot shower; and he couldn’t stop himself from thinking how Jacob probably felt the same, but tenfold. “Thanks for the help.”

_ He has a cruel face, _ one of the women had said.  _ His face. _

The face staring at him now, the face that had been upfront with him since day one, the  _ only _ Cerberus face he could bear to talk to for months now…

_ “Hey.” Oh God. Tracy Smith’s talking to him. Space Monkeys’ lead singer. Which means this is about— “I heard what Vlad did. We kicked him out of the band.”  _

_ “Um. I'm sorry.” _

_ “Sorry? Nah, don’t be. Vlad’s an ass. Hey, wanna hang out sometime? You seem cool.” _

_ Samed’s cheeks flush. Tracy looks at him with eyebrows raised over earnest dark-brown eyes, a smile on his face. “Um. Sure.” _

_ “Cool! See you around...Samed, was it?" Samed nods quickly. "And hey, Vlad sucked, but I have a friend I could fix you up with instead. Cool guy, think you two'll fit together.” _

_ His cheeks flush even more as Tracy waves goodbye. He adjusts his backpack and rushes home, with a reluctant smile on his face. Doesn’t believe he just made…  _

Samed blinked the memory away, focusing on another pair of seemingly earnest eyes. Even if the situation now was a lot more complicated than boyfriend and band trouble. “Anytime, Jacob,” he said with a reluctant smile on his face.

Maybe all that loneliness got to him. But there was a small seed of an inkling in him just about to sprout. One that told that when the time would come, Jacob would be on his side. That he’d just made…

_ …a friend. _

* * *

The ride back to the Normandy was quiet, Garrus's usual remarks about his awful driving replaced by tension one could cut with a knife.

Samed understood it well enough: what happened with Sidonis, starting to see someone who hurt you, who hurt the ones you loved as something other than a brainless monster wasn't something one got over with a little talk. It needed time, the discomfort needed to settle in, become the new normal. Hopefully replace the anger, too.

He found himself back in the Main Battery after about a week, to a tension that had either completely dispersed or had just been swept under the rug. Or perhaps Garrus was feeling it too: that chill that permeated through every corner of the ship, that constant reminder that two years had passed, that nothing was the same after everything that had happened.

Regardless, wistful laughter and small talk soon filled the room: of Garrus's old military and C-Sec days, of Ilos, and of something that Garrus mentioned, something that flipped some kind of switch in Samed's brain: the way the turian military prepared for a tough mission, by brawling the tension out in a controlled environment.

It was something he understood, regardless of the differences between him and Garrus: that need to beat your demons into submission. Back when he started training judo, however, he did it because he felt pent up, angry. Not chilled down to the bone, listless and lonely as he was now.

The anger back then was because he wanted to feel normal. And nothing about his current situation was normal.

As he left the Main Battery, with that inner chill kept at bay for the moment, Garrus's unspoken proposition stuck to his mind: blowing off some steam, brawling it out.

* * *

“Yes, Shepard?” Tali stood at attention before Samed, arms behind her back, back straightened. A true military posture, even more improved than when he’d first seen her on Freedom’s Progress. 

Holding back a proud smile, he just said: “Just checking in.”

The image of Rael’Zorah's lifeless body on the ground hung on his mind. And with Tali’s whiplash reaction following it…he hugged her back on the Alarei, but he also hugged a small boy in that moment. One overlooking two bodies wrapped in cloth as the imam recited the prayers. Tali seemed to have bounced back a lot faster than he did, at least.

The next hour or so was just spent talking, both of them sitting cross legged in the subdeck, while Jack was God-knew where doing God-knew what. Small talk, about quarian customs. About some of his own customs, too. Talking trash about Cerberus. Talking fondly about the old Normandy. Talk that thawed just a little bit of the chill that had settled on the SR2.

As Samed walked back to his cabin, he noticed that some of the loneliness that had settled in him had thawed just a little bit as well.


End file.
